Barely a week goes by without something reminding Anita Hill of her role in U.S. history.

She'll be talking with her students at Brandeis University or catching up on the news, and she'll stumble across her name, her story or some shorthand version of that surreal scene 20 years ago when she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

"There was a Time magazine piece on Dominique Strauss-Kahn last week, and the writer talked about France having its 'Anita Hill moment,'" she said in an interview. "It can feel a bit bizarre. I'm just here living my life."

These echoes of the past occur because we're still grappling with gender inequity in this country. Powerful men still take advantage of their position to demand sex or cover it up. Anthony Weiner could tell you that much.

For those of us born before about 1980, Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation hearings represent one of those, "Do you remember where you were?" turning points in our nation's rocky path toward liberty and justice for all. I was a sophomore in college when Hill, a slim, soft-spoken Oklahoma law professor who'd worked for Thomas, took the witness chair.

Two decades later, I still remember the stomach-churning sense of disbelief among the crowd that squeezed into the student newspaper office to watch the hearings on TV. We were baby journalists, still wedded to the idea that we weren't supposed to have opinions. But what was unfolding in Washington made no sense: Hill had no reason to lie. Thomas did.

Hill came to the Pacific Northwest this week to help raise money for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. She believes recent legislation attacks on the organization are part of a larger ongoing war. The connection between sexual misdeeds by influential men, new laws restricting access to abortions, calls to privatize Social Security and Medicare, and union-busting efforts that would kill collective bargaining for teachers but exclude police might seem tenuous. Yet each would hurt women disproportionately.

"This is an age of austerity," Hill said. "We cannot allow that be to used as an excuse to roll back the advances we've made."

Two decades after her stare-down with the senators, Hill declined to ascribe a motive to what amounts to a collective attack on the rights of women, particularly poor women of color. Almost two decades out of journalism school, I have an opinion.

We are in the midst of a backlash by the mostly white, male, affluent establishment that has run this nation since the beginning. It's an unfortunate if understandable reaction: Women are corporate executives and cabinet secretaries. There's a black man in the Oval Office. A slim majority now approves of gay marriage, and a generation has grown up knowing Roe vs. Wade as the law rather than a landmark. Change is scary, especially when it gives people who don't look or think like you more power.

"My role is to convince you, if I haven't already, that one person's voice can matter," Hill told the crowd of 500 people who packed a downtown hotel ballroom to see her Tuesday. "We need your voice. We need everyone who cares about these issues asking themselves: What would equality look like? Because while we have come a long way, we're still not there."